o accuse him now, and I would not listen to you unless I believed that
I could help to make you see him as you should."

Madame Patoff bent her head and hid her eyes in her hand, as though
greatly distressed.

"I love you so much, dear Hermy--I cannot bear to think of your marrying
him. You cannot understand me--I know--and you think me very unkind. But
I hate him!" she cried, with a burst of uncontrollable anger. "Oh, how I
hate him!"

Her hands had dropped from her face, and her dark eyes flashed wickedly
as she stared at the young girl. Hermione was startled for a moment, but
she also had learned a lesson of self-possession.

"Do you think that I am afraid when you look at me like that, aunt
Annie?" she asked, very quietly.

Madame Patoff's features relaxed, and she laughed a little foolishly, as
though ashamed of herself.

"No, child; why should you be afraid? I am only an unhappy old woman. I
cannot speak to any one else."

"And you must not speak to me in that way," answered Hermione, in a
gentle tone. "I love Paul with all my heart, and I cannot hear him
abused by you, even though I know you are out of your mind when you say
such things. I should be despicable if I listened to you."

"If I loved you less, dear," returned the old lady, "I might hate him
less. Ah, if you could only have married Alexis,--if it could only have
been the other way!"

"Hush!" exclaimed Hermione, almost roughly. "You are wishing that Paul
were dead, instead of his brother. I will go away, if you talk like
that."

She suited the action to the word, and rose to go towards the door. She
knew her aunt very well. Madame Patoff changed her tone at once.

"Oh, don't go away, don't go away!" she cried nervously. "I will never
speak of him again, if you will only stay with me."

Hermione turned and came back, and saw that her threat had for the
present produced its effect, as it usually did. Madame Patoff had
indeed a strange affection for her niece, and the latter knew how to
manage her by means of it. At the mere idea of Hermione's leaving her in
anger, the aunt softened and became docile.

"I did not mean it, child," she said, dolefully. "I am always so
unhappy, so dreadfully wretched, that I say things I do not altogether
mean. I am not quite myself to-night, either. Coming here, to the place
where my poor boy was lost, has upset my nerves; and, really, your aunt
Chrysophrasia is so very tactless. She always was like that. I r